Come August, there’s always a change in the air, my mom always says. Not quite a chill, but rather a reminder of the change that is to come, a promise, a hint.

As the novelist Natalie Babbitt puts it: “The first week of August hangs at the very top of the summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless, and hot… these are strange and breathless days, the dog days.”

The highest seat of the Ferris wheel, a change in the air that hints towards that slow descent to the first chill of autumn.

In Italy, August is a special month filled with celebrations and vacations. August 15th is a national holiday called Ferragosto, a combination of “ferie” (holiday) and “agosto” (August). A centuries-old tradition, Ferragosto traditionally marked the end of the harvest season, and friends and family would gather together to celebrate a bountiful yield and enjoy the fruits of their summer labor. Nowadays, each city holds their own festivities on the 15th, which can range from a citywide event in which every street, alley, and piazza is closed for dancing (Rome) to a horse race that happens in the central piazza (Siena), to the more common religious processions, fireworks, and feasts.

In the following days, shops turn their signs to closed. Banks, post offices, and attorneys close their office doors. Streets of Italy’s northern cities empty out, as most Italians flock to the south’s crystal clear, turquoise beaches. The country shuts down for business, as Italians celebrate the peak of summer and the beginning of vacation, as most take their summer holiday over following weeks.

One of the most popular August-holiday beaches, La Pelosa, located on the island of Sardegna off the coast of Italy, swells with thousands of tourists each August. When I visited the beach during the month of April with a group of friends, the question we always received first — from the AirBnb host, a middle-aged woman who greeted us with a thick local dialect and a cigarette in hand, the owner of the small gelato shop who served us each day in a white dress shirt, the worker at the small wine shop who introduced us to mirto, a regional myrtle-infused liquer — was always this: “Why are you here now, and not in August?”

Many of the conversations I have had recently point all too quickly to this slow descent to that first chill of autumn, laced with the sense that summer, these sun-drenched months that the rest of the year looks forward to, is already over — each coming weekend booked, summer chores still to complete, eyes always looking forward to what comes next. In the Downtown Development Authority office, it is no different. Christmas decorations, October’s Chowder and Chili Cook-off, winter events, and even plans for next summer have all been topics at this week’s meetings alone.

Each August, I have to believe that the Italians are on to something. Celebrating the heat of the summer, celebrating the labor behind the summer bounty, the summer harvest. Savoring this time at the top peak of the Ferris wheel before the change in the air comes.

Even though we may not be able to take a month-long vacation, even though we may not be able to close our shops, offices, and banks, I hope in these remaining weeks of summer you make time to savor these motionless, hot, breathless days. That you create your own Ferragosto, a time to celebrate summer, and a time to enjoy its remaining, fleeting days.

Anne Gentry graduated from Brown University with a degree in Comparative Literature and has studied in Italy and South Australia. She is currently Executive Director of the Alpena Downtown Development Authority.